


Knots

by rexluscus



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Crying, Hair stroking, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Touch-Starved, kylux soft kinks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 06:29:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7211684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rexluscus/pseuds/rexluscus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-TFA. Hux finds himself comforting Kylo Ren in the medbay, quite against expectations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knots

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt at [Kylux Soft Kinks](http://kyluxsoftkinks.tumblr.com/post/145890017761/im-really-obsessed-with-touch-starved-overly): "I'm really obsessed with touch starved, overly sensitive Kylo. So much that a hand in his hair brings tears to his eyes. Hair touches absolutely slay me. And it's probably horrible, but I love it so much when he cries."
> 
> Thanks to carnival_papers for beta-reading, and for encouraging maximum hair-stroking!

Kylo Ren lies on a medbay gurney, swathed in wires and tubing.

General Hux stares down at him in alarm. “He didn’t look this bad when we brought him in!”

“There have been complications from the blaster wound to his abdomen,” says the surgical droid. “His liver began to fail, and he developed an infection.”

Hux’s mind races. His message to the Supreme Leader had been optimistic; what will Snoke do if he turns up with Ren’s corpse?

Ren thrashes on the gurney and moans.

“What’s wrong with him now?” Hux demands.

“Nothing is wrong with him, General.” The droid maneuvers around Ren’s writhing body. “He is simply in pain.” It taps a keypad and a tube fills with fluid, and after a moment the moaning and thrashing stop. Ren still grimaces every so often, though, or rolls his head from side to side.

Hux isn’t interested in Ren’s pain. He needs Ren whole, not happy. Nevertheless, he looks at Ren and thinks, with detached wonder, _No human hands have touched you_ , _not for days. Probably far longer._

“Well,” he tells the droid, “I need to debrief him. Can he be made lucid without—” he doesn’t know how to say this unsentimentally— “without causing unnecessary suffering?”

“I am afraid he is already receiving the maximum recommended opioid dosage for an adult human male of his weight.”

Hux looks down. “Ren,” he calls softly.

“I doubt he is able to respond, General.”

“Will you get _out_ of here?” Hux snaps.

The droid rolls out with an electronic grumble.

“Ren,” Hux says again. “I need to ask you some questions.”

“Uhhhnn,” Ren moans. He’s no longer thrashing, but his back is rigid, and the muscles and veins on his neck stand out. His slashed face glistens all over with sweat.

Hux has no choice, if he wants his answers. “Just a moment,” he says, and rummages in a cabinet for a cloth. He runs it under cold water from the tap and returns to Ren’s side.

Ren moans at the touch of the cool cloth on his brow, a broken, agonized sound. But when Hux pulls the cloth away, Ren turns his head to chase it. A moan of relief, then, not of pain.

Hux sighs. He doesn’t have much experience with this.

Carefully, avoiding the livid wound, he presses the cloth to every part of Ren’s face. Each time, Ren makes a sound of such unrestrained animal relief that Hux gets uneasy.

“Does that help?” he finds himself asking, almost gently.

“Mmhmm,” Ren says, his eyes still closed.

“So you _can_ hear me.” Hux lays the cloth across Ren’s brow. “Can you tell me what happened on Starkiller?”

“Uhh,” says Ren. “Nnnn.” His face contorts in agony. Hux wonders if this time, it’s not just physical pain.

“You _must_ tell me,” says Hux.

Ren opens his mouth as if to oblige, but all he does is gasp. When tears well up from between his tightly closed eyelids, Hux realizes the gasps are sobs.

Hux flushes with shame. He looks away from Ren’s misery-etched face, embarrassed for both of them. “Ren,” he says tightly, staring at the floor, “Ren, calm yourself.”

Ren shuts his mouth. Another gurgling sob wells up anyway.

Hux shuts his eyes. “Oh dear,” he mutters to himself. He draws a fortifying breath and looks at Ren again.

It actually hurts to look at him. His face is blotchy and red, and his nose is running. With the cloth, Hux wipes away some of the tears and snot. For some reason, this makes Ren cry harder.

Hux is at a loss. All he can think of is his mother soothing him as a small child, back before he’d learned not to cry and bury his head in her lap whenever he got hurt. _There now, darling_ , she’d say, and stroke the back of his head, the fine hairs that curled on his neck. He’s learned to detest those memories. And yet.

“There now,” Hux says, hesitantly, mechanically, as he touches Ren’s brow. He forces his hand to draw down, his fingers to part the strands of Ren’s greasy, blood-caked hair—a motion so alien to him that he can barely complete it. This is not who he is—or, not who he has been in a very, very long time.

At his touch, Ren gasps, a sob catching in his throat. For a moment, as Hux strokes him, he doesn’t breathe at all. Then his breath rushes out in a shivery gust, as if Hux’s fingers had found some knot in the depths of his strange, turbulent mind and worked it free. The next breath he draws is unimpeded, if shaky.

Hux takes an unsteady breath of his own.

“You’re all right,” he hears himself murmur. “You’re safe.” Again he draws his fingers through Ren’s hair, working them deep enough to graze Ren’s scalp this time. And this time Ren whimpers, his brows drawing together like a child’s in the midst of a nightmare. A feeling lances through Hux, unnameable but unmistakable, and he knows: this is the first gentle touch Ren has felt since he, too, was a child.

It should revolt him. He should pull his hand away and get on with this debrief, get what he needs and get out. Instead, he strokes the crease between Ren’s brows with his thumb and watches it vanish, then runs his fingertips down Ren’s unwounded cheek. He feels his breathing synchronize with Ren’s; a strange silence encloses them. Slipping into some alternate version of himself, he cradles the side of Ren’s head in his hand. When Ren turns and presses his burning face to Hux’s palm, Hux shuts his eyes.

 _You’ll deny this later,_ he thinks. _So do what you want._

He sinks down and rests his forehead against Ren’s cheek, threading his fingers through Ren’s thick hair. _There now, darling_ , he thinks, though doesn’t say, caressing Ren’s sweaty, restless head, drawing strands of Ren’s hair through his fingers until he, too, is soothed. They listen to each other breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> Continue the madness at [my tumblr](http://rex-luscus.tumblr.com)!


End file.
